| I began playing folk music publicly in a tiny hall on Domano Boulevard in Prince George, BC back in 1979. PG was and still is a mill town, population then about 70.000 residents and a fair number of them had Celtic roots. The winters were long and hard and we were a long way from any major city. So we made our own fun. Before long I was playing the various coffee houses and small festivals throughout the interior until one day I discovered that music had completely taken over. In 1989, with a very promising music career ahead of me, I simply stopped taking bookings altogether in order to devote more time to my family. |
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It would be another five years before I
started up again. That’s the difference, I suppose, between myself and those who
have climbed to the top. It’s a choice that I will never regret however. There’s
a clever little line in a song that John Denver sung “Thank God I’m a Country
Boy” that goes “Still I fiddle when I can, Work when I should” and that says
something to me. I play when I can and although it’s a precious pastime, there
are other things to be done. |
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This is Jim's liveliest album and features a variety of well known Irish &
Scottish songs as well as a few of his own compositions.
(Also available as mp3 album) |
This album offers a variety of Celtic folk songs. From the very old to the very new. Slow ballads to rousing choruses as well as one of Jim's own compositions "The Troubadour" which tells of his days busking on Victoria's Inner Harbour. |
This album is a compilation of some of my very own favourites from my first 3 CDs. It is available to you through CD Baby. (Also available as mp3 album) |
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| Visit My Music Shop for some excellent deals! | ||
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I’ve squeezed a number of years in there where I played full time, travelled a whole lot and met and played for many, many, fine people. I look at my sons, grown now, and I’m glad of the time we had when they were young. When they were old enough. I took to the road again. On many occasions one or both would show up at one of my gigs , their friends in tow! I always get a thrill out of that. They are young men now and I have a daughter not yet old enough for school. So I've taken a few more years off just to be with her and am now starting my musical career for the third time in my life. I’m still playing but closer to home where I can spend the time with my family. 2007 was busy enough & 2008 will be even busier I'm working on a new album and will be including a number of my own songs so keep an ear out for them. "Highway of Tears" & "The Bold Tommy Makem" are well worth a listen.
Reviews
Times Colonist. "You could be in a crowded pub in Dublin, Belfast, Galway or Cork. People are enjoying glasses of Guinness, and the sweet smells of Irish lamb stew fill the room. When JIM BRANNIGAN strums a traditional melody on his tenor guitar a silver haired diner reaches across a table shared with two other couples to hold his wife's hand and with a smile murmurs, 'Just like the old days'. Joseph Blake GreenManReview Jim is a treasure this Island should never have let go of, Jim is not a giant of a man, he is of average height and build, but once he opens his mouth, there is a change, and he has full control of the entire room and all within it. His voice is rich and filled with emotions, captivating and drawing the audience in under his spell. Jim Brannigan is a master magician/musician. I have to wonder if they are one in the same, and he not a legendary bard of olden day, for I have never witnessed anything even remotely similar before. He held that audience, orchestrated every mood and emotion which swept through the room that night. Once the show was done, Jim traded his glass of water for one of ale and mingled with the audience. At this point, I said my thank-you's for the magic and the music, and took my leave. The magic lasted until I drifted off to sleep that night, awash on waves of sound... (Naomi de Bruyn)
Log Cabin Chronicles http://www.tomifobia.com/maritimes/maritimes8.html BADDECK, N.S. Everyone was mellow at the Yellow Cello here last night. Scotsman Jim Brannigan's banjo and guitar were hot and his voice in fine form from "The Dutchman" through "The Fields of Athenry" to his own poignant "Hills of Margaree." Everyone is included, some gently needled, others jollied up. But it's all in good fun and all hands got into the spirit of the evening John Mahoney *************************************************** If I had to come up with the most memorable gig of my career, I'd be hard pushed to remember anything that surpassed the four summer seasons I spent playing at the "Yellow Cello" in Baddeck, Cape Breton. Just a sixty seat restaurant which pushed two hundred & fifty customers through each night and every night, a different crowd. If you look through my guest book, you will find many visitors whom I met and played for at that marvellous little venue. I miss Cape Breton in the way that I miss my true home. I love her people and the whole way of life there. Maybe some day, I'll go back to stay.
I’ve always sung. It’s in my blood, I suppose. For as long as I can remember, everywhere that I went and everything that I did was done with a song in my head. I believe it’s the Germans who came up with the term “Earworm”. You know. That song that bounces around inside your cranium and just won’t go away. For me, that’s just the way it is most of the time. Sometimes a favourite song or just a clever line. Other times it’s a whole medley of songs, one running into another, picking up the pace as it goes. Often, well into the night until sleep takes over. Only to awaken in the morning to the sound of a purple finch outside my window. I’m reminded then of the blackbird perched on my rooftop in the west of Scotland, where I was raised and off I go again. Singing in my head. Songs of Freedom, songs of Love, songs about work, songs about play, songs of friendship, praise and the inevitable finality of death itself. That I will sing to the end is, indeed, inevitable. Cheers! Jim |
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